


The Runaway

by koeia



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:29:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26691460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koeia/pseuds/koeia
Summary: Alana Beck is a time traveling fugitive.Yeah, everyone's a little surprised when they find out that particular gem of information.  She's specifically wanted for time traveling to the twenty first century for an extra credit assignment at Time's Gate Academy and never returning home.And now she has a mission that she's taken upon herself – keep Evan Hansen and Connor Murphy alive.  It's a lot more complicated than it sounds.  That means she needs to get them into functional therapy, get them a support system, and manage to not get her cover blown as a time traveler.It's...harder than it sounds.“You’ve been running away your whole life, Alana.  And that’s who you are.  You’ve run away at the first sign of trouble, rewinding time and escaping whenever your circumstances don’t suit you.  So now you’ve gotta pick between fighting for what matters, and running like you always have.  What are you going to do?”
Relationships: Alana Beck & Connor Murphy, Alana Beck & Evan Hansen, Alana Beck & Jared Kleinman, Alana Beck & Zoe Murphy, Evan Hansen & Jared Kleinman, Evan Hansen & Zoe Murphy, Evan Hansen/Connor Murphy
Comments: 17
Kudos: 24





	1. Chapter 1

Alana Beck hadn’t meant to get mixed up in all this. Truly, she hadn’t. It was supposed to be  _ simple.  _ Go back in time, observe the impacts of a minor shift in the timeline, visit its parallel, write a five paragraph essay on the butterfly effect, and go  _ home.  _

And by all accounts, it  _ should’ve  _ been that easy! But then she had to go and get attached like a fool. Years of training thrown away in less than a week –  _ less than a week!  _ – because she happened to get attached to a couple of dumbass  _ teenagers _ who happened to keep  _ tripping and falling _ into  _ mortal peril.  _

Nevermind the fact that she, herself, was by all accounts technically a dumbass teenager. Where she was from time was so messy that nobody really paid attention to that stuff. She had entered her first time loop at five years old, and a year later she was still considered five because nobody else had experienced that passage of time, so age didn’t really... _ matter.  _ Time couldn’t be easily quantified anymore, and besides people across the galaxy were experiencing it at different rates, who even  _ cared.  _

So was Alana technically a temporal fugitive who had committed high crimes against the Federation of Time Traversing Scientists?  _ Maybe.  _ Did she even care?  _ Apparently not.  _

And not only was she a temporal fugitive now, which was – to be fair – somewhat anticipated for the bottom of her class in the Academy – but she was a temporal fugitive in  _ twenty-first century America.  _ Political turmoil and underground racism, full steam ahead! 

She wasn’t supposed to go back in time and just...live out a  _ normal life _ in the twenty-first century. It was illegal for several reasons – the foremost of which was the fact that she, a human born with an innate time traveling capability, could do some  _ major damage  _ to spacetime if not closely monitored. The spontaneous creation of several timelines could create a time  _ knot,  _ and nobody wanted to deal with a time  _ knot.  _ Ridiculous amounts of paperwork for the entire multiverse. 

But here she was. Entering a time loop of her own free will, for something that basically amounted to  _ shits and giggles,  _ because she tripped and fell into considering Connor Murphy her best friend.  _ Whoopsy-fucking-doo.  _

And then,  _ lo and behold,  _ the event she’s supposed to notice and write a  _ fucking essay on  _ is this kid’s death. She was going to go grey before the timeline even stretched her to twenty at this rate, assuming she even got that far before these  _ human disasters  _ ended up trapping her in a never ending time loop because they just  _ kept trying to destroy each other, by the Great Gears of Time – _

– she’d figured out how to get both Connor and Evan Hansen through their first day of Senior year. That was a task that  _ should not have been as hard as it was.  _ But, well,  _ here she was.  _ A basket with muffins under her arm just in time to  _ coincidentally stumble across Connor at the park, oh, what a coincidence, do you want a muffin?  _

***

Alana was late. She’d spent too long picking the right kind of muffin up from the store and she’d been  _ too damn late.  _ She was shaken. She was always shaken when she had to find them, or watch, or – or –

– her senses were foggy. She felt her heels dig into the earth beneath her feet, kept her gaze on her friend (or the person who used to be), and she  _ pulled.  _

Traversing time was messy, and sticky. It was like wading through maple syrup – doable, theoretically, and even kinda fun once you get the hang of it, but hard enough that it was exhausting, and it clung to one’s skin after, following them even as they tried to wash it away, not really fading for days or weeks after. Alana’s skill with unwinding and rewinding the timeline was unparalleled, which was the  _ only  _ reason Time’s Gate Academy hadn’t expelled her yet. She was innately gifted in her temporal manipulation, but she was too damn emotional. 

Wow. Who  _ possibly  _ could have guessed that the time traveler who made it her mission to save a couple someones who by all accounts should’ve been strangers was too emotional for her job as an observer and recorder of written history. It was  _ impossible  _ to imagine. 

All of this sarcastic bitterness was floating through her head as she pulled, stepping back and going breathless as she tried not to fall to the ground. She’d been doing this too much, at this rate it was going to kill her. But she had to  _ try.  _

Her heart thundered in her chest. She was barely breathing. This was all too  _ much.  _ She tried her best to not fall to her knees in the sea of kids around her who didn’t even notice or really care. 

That was the other thing about the twenty-first century that was wild to Alana. She wasn’t a failure here. She wasn’t considered not good enough, she wasn’t considered  _ broken,  _ she didn’t get shit from the other students every day for opting out of the government run glorified dating app because romance wasn’t her thing. Here, nobody knew that. Here, she wasn’t the overly emotional but-not-emotional-enough failure of Time’s Gate. 

Here, she was Alana Beck, the overachiever who somehow could do an impossible amount of extracurriculars while maintaining a killer GPA. The perks of time travel were  _ awesome.  _

She balanced on a locker for a minute, taking a breath and reorienting herself. She spun on her heel, walking with an excited intent toward where she knew Evan Hansen was going to be – she’d done this over a hundred times before, she was prepared, and she was about to fail epically at acting like a normal human being. 

“Hey, how was your summer?” She tried to seem interested and engaged in talking to him. 

“My…?”

He seemed to be struggling at carrying the conversation on. Maybe Alana needed to step in? 

“Mine was productive! I did three internships and ninety hours of community service –”  _ probably more than that trying to keep you and Connor alive, you disasters  _ “– I know, wow.” 

“Yeah, that’s – wow – that’s really impressive,” Evan seemed to trip over his own words. He was clearly anxious. Maybe she needed to show that she wasn’t super socially competent either? 

“Yeah, even though I was super busy all summer, I still made some great friends! Or, well, acquaintances more like.” 

He was gathering courage! That was good. “Do you want to maybe, um, I don’t know what you’re – do you want to sign my cast?” 

_ Right.  _ She had to act like she didn’t know what was up with that! 

“Oh my God, what happened to your arm?” 

“Oh, well I broke it, I was climbing up a tree…”

Alana wasn’t listening at all, her mind buzzing a million other places. It didn’t much matter, anyway, she’d heard this a million times. Oh, but she had to throw in something to relate and show that she had an actual backstory and she didn’t just show up out of the blue in this small nowhere town and alter everyone’s memories so they recognized her even if they didn’t actually know her! Right. 

“Oh, really? My grandma broke her hip getting into the bathtub in July. That was the beginning of the end, the doctors said. Because then she died. Happy first day!” 

_ Nailed it.  _


	2. Chapter 2

_ “Does anyone know why we represent time as a line?” The teacher at the front of the class asked, standing in front of several giant, dangling wires. Alana raised her hand nervously. “Beck, what is your theory?”  _

_ “Is it because of the linear manner in which humans  _ experience  _ time?”  _

_ “Absolutely incorrect. Anybody else?”  _

_ “It is because of the manner in which timelines behave, weaving between themselves to create a cohesive unit.”  _

_ “Very good! This is correct. Time is explained as a line due to the way in which it behaves. When an event occurs across several timelines, it is known as throughline.” A wire ran horizontally across the teacher’s display, weaving the several vertical lines together. “This is an unavoidable event that must always occur. We don’t know why this is, but it is believed to be in order to keep the cohesion of the timeline.”  _

_ “When a timeline is altered too heavily, it can create a fray in the timeline,” one of the wires started to unravel at the ends, looking more like a string that had been pulled apart. “This can cause a weakness in the link that binds it to other timelines or even that loops it from beginning to end, and thus can cause it to snap like a rubber band, erasing from existence.”  _

_ “When you loop through time, you don’t go back in time. You instead jump horizontally to another line all together. These lines are the ones closest to your home universe and therefore are exactly the same in all ways but the very minor – someone poured their milk before their cereal or vice versa. These have very minor changes, but everything is a little to the left. Once you have left a timeline, you cannot return to the same one – they’re nearly impossible to track. When you jump, you can jump to any point in the line you are shifting to, but once you have chosen the point you must remain on that track until you decide to jump again.”  _

_ “A time tangle is when you jump to a timeline with events too distant from your own. As you drift, so too do the vestiges of your timeline. Creating major changes can tangle these timelines together, creating a massive catastrophe of unknown scale.”  _

_ Alana raised her hand nervously. The teacher huffed, gesturing for her to ask her question.  _

_ “Why don’t we represent time as a circle? Since – since it loops around at the end, and we could make venn diagrams representing the timelines with similarities, wouldn’t that make the most sense?”  _

_ “If that made the most sense we’d already be  _ doing it,  _ Beck. Don’t worry about things above your future pay grade. We all know where you come out of this.”  _

_ It’s true – they did. A time traveler had come to their class once and said that Alana Beck was a renowned criminal in their timeline for her outlandish feats of time piracy and for creating the greatest time tangle in history.  _

_ That’s why the teachers and students didn’t like her. They didn’t stop her yet, because she was still a kid and it wasn’t legal to arrest someone for something they  _ might _ do. But they were watching. Somehow that felt worse.  _

***

Alana was downright pissed  _ at best.  _ Because these idiots were back at it again, pulling their disastrous ‘misunderstanding each other and thinking the other one is out to get me’ routine! By the hands of  _ time,  _ were they trying to get themselves killed? 

_ Well maybe that’s a bit of the problem, now, isn’t it?  _

Yeah, right. So that meant the first thing she had to do was, y’know,  _ fix that.  _ Easier said than done, she was sure. 

She had watched them go through a mutual misunderstanding, saved Connor from himself, and then  _ watched a goddamn AC unit fall on Evan’s head _ about an hour later. 

Once again, Alana was wading through maple syrup. She could feel something welling up in her stomach – she needed help. Someone who she could explain all this nonsense to who would actually understand what was going on and help her. And a trash can. 

There was only one person who could do what she needed – one asshole ‘family friend’ who caused just as many problems as he could potentially solve. 

_ Jared Kleinman,  _ the asshole, genius, however-many-greats grandfather to her sworn nemesis.  _ Festive.  _

***

Alana Beck had finally snapped. Jared had been anticipating this for years now, of course – she pushed herself inhumanly hard and didn’t really seem to care. But this,  _ this  _ was the bizarre-icing on the weird-ass-cake. 

“So you’re a  _ time traveler  _ who has set out to prevent  _ great calamities  _ just ‘cuz you’re nice? Yeah, I don’t buy it,  _ Beck.”  _

“No, I’m a  _ time fugitive  _ who has decided to make a mess out of the spacetime continuum because I’ve decided that two  _ dumbass teenagers  _ with the combined self-preservation of a  _ lawn gnome  _ are now my responsibility.” 

“Assuming I believe you –” Jared narrowed his eyes at Alana “– which I don’t,  _ by the way,  _ how is that even possible?” 

“When humans figured out lightspeed travel – a couple hundred years ago, or maybe a couple hundred years from now, time is  _ bullshit –  _ a couple of pregnant ladies decided to hop aboard some lightspeed aircrafts and zoom to help inhabit newly terriformed colonies on the outskirts of our current habitation. Y’know, the usual. The thing  _ is,  _ prolonged exposure to lightspeed travel while still in the womb does something... _ funky  _ to babies. I dunno what. But not long after that there were a bunch of time traveling hooligans zipping around. Eventually some of them grew up, established time-laws, and set up the Federation of Time Traveling Scientists. Pregnancies aren’t allowed on lightspeed aircrafts anymore – and those of them that slip through the cracks, like me, end up training at Time’s Gate Academy to keep up the time traveling legacy or some bullshit.” Alana rolled her eyes. 

“And you’re telling me this  _ why?”  _ Jared huffed. 

“Because next time I jump a line, I’m dragging  _ you  _ with me,” Alana crossed her arms. She had definitely  _ lost it.  _

“Did you just say  _ jump a line?”  _

“Yes. Now  _ keep up,  _ these are just the  _ basics.”  _

***

It wasn’t long before it was on the news that  _ Connor Murphy  _ had gotten into a car accident on the way to lunch,  _ wasn’t that a shame?  _ Alana didn’t even blink as she reached for Jared’s...string _ , whatever it was  _ that kept people stuck to their root timeline, and pulled. 

Once again, Alana Beck was wading through maple syrup. She landed an hour before the first day of school in Ellison State Park. 

“Holy shit. Holy shit! What the fuck  _ was  _ that?” 

“Welcome to your first time loop, Kleinman. You’re officially a time fugitive. Now let’s get a plan in motion, okay? Because I’m going to need some help, and you’re not the best, but you’re what I’ve got.” 

“Shit – okay. Okay! As long as you can let me return to my normal life after,  _ ugh  _ what kind of headache  _ is that?”  _

“That’s your brain adjusting to the unnatural flow of time. It sucks, but you’ll sort it out. Now. I need everything you know about Evan Hansen, Connor Murphy, and why you think the universe is determined to kill one of them off the first day of your senior year?” 


	3. Chapter 3

_ Dancing was the closest Alana was ever going to feel to flying.  _

_ It was the opposite of when she had to wade through time. When she was dancing, she was balanced on the balls of her feet, always on the edge of falling – or she was jumping, reaching up toward the sky, rocketing from the ground and feeling the soaring nothing beneath her feet – or she was landing, deep in a pli _ _ é _ _ so as to avoid injury, all control and strength and balance.  _

_ Pointe was the closest Alana was ever going to feel to strong.  _

_ Rolling through the box of her shoe was a challenge in itself some days, balancing her weight on her toes no longer painful unless prolonged but more of a struggle to maintain balance, as if even the faintest whisper of wind could knock her over. É _ _ chappé after échappé were a test to her endurace as her lungs burned, her knees trying their best to not give out as she pushed the arches of her feet just a little farther, her arms immovable as she dropped her shoulders, remembering her form and posture. Her changements on pointe were stunning because, unlike most people in her class, she could actually get a little height to them.  _

_ Jumps were the closest Alana had ever felt to freedom.  _

_ Her tour jeté was, in itself, remarkable. She was in control, she was flying and falling at her own pace, her feet landing with the strength of a plié at her demand. Her cabrioles were stunning, as she was able to figure out what it meant to ‘beat your thighs, not your feet’ before anyone else in her class.  _

_ For a moment, for a lifetime, Alana could fly. For a moment – a split millisecond, fast enough that it could barely be felt and was impossible to catch for those who would squander it – Alana was free.  _

***

Alana knew how this was going to end. She was going to create a massive time tangle – or perhaps she already had – but regardless of any of that, she was going to fail. She knew that. So why was she bothering? 

_ “There’s a chance – a small one, but a chance – that this works out. If I live my life based on what might happen, I’ll miss out on what will.” _

Oh,  _ right.  _ The stupid class on time-traveling philosophy she had to take as a little kid, taught by the only reasonable teacher in Time’s Gate. Unlike every other student in the damn place, something in there had stuck with her and now she was looping over and over again to try to save a couple of teenagers, dragging another one through the loops right alongside her. 

“So basically all you can come up with is…just ‘cuz?” Jared huffed as he narrowed his eyes at the list the two had made. They were sitting in Ellison State Park, reevaluating their plan after another failed day. It was a double whammy death this time – someone had spilled water on the steps at school and Evan had tripped over it while trying to get Connor to get his letter back. Connor, having realized Evan had fallen down the stairs, tried to go back to help – and also fell. “They die a different way every time, but somebody always does. And by someone, I mean one of those two. You can’t figure out why?” 

“It’s a throughline in all timelines. On this day, one of  _ those two  _ has to die. And I don’t know  _ why.  _ What could be caused by this that has a profound enough impact that it can’t be changed?” 

“The school wide grief,” Jared shrugged. “You said something about ‘The Connor Project’ and ‘The Evan Association’ both being started in assorted timelines by different groups of students. Videos – speeches – that had impacts on mass groups of people, spreading awareness or whatever.” 

“That’s it!” Alana snapped. “Jared, you’re a  _ genius!  _ The impact isn’t small enough scale to be this school – it’s a bigger thing than that! What we need isn’t to just protect Evan and Connor but rather to create the same impact that would’ve been had  _ without  _ killing someone off – which should be simple enough. The sentiment was always there, that people aren’t alone and should reach out to each other, but this was just a reminder – and if we kick it up off the ground ourselves, nobody  _ needs  _ reminded. And we can use it to build up a support system for Connor and Evan!” 

“So we’re starting – what. A suicide awareness association?” 

“A place where people can find each other. Maybe with – with a basis in the arts! Because self expression is key to how people can bond and connect to each other, ‘cuz words fail sometimes. So maybe it’s a place where people can safely share the stuff that they don’t want to talk about but still need to express. Dance, and the visual arts, and poetry, and  _ music!  _ It could be anything – anything that serves as a reminder that people aren’t as alone as they think, that there is love, that there is  _ hope,  _ and all people have gotta do is find it!” Alana’s mind was buzzing as she started writing up a proposal, her hands flying faster than her mouth as she opened her laptop. “And we should still kick it off with a school wide assembly – except instead of serving as a reminder of someone who died, we should use it to remind people that they’re  _ alive.  _ Have people talk about good things – a time that they felt alone but realized they weren’t, people who have done good for the sake of being good, sharing self-expression freely!” 

“Do you honestly think this is going to work?” Jared bit his bottom lip. “I mean, it’s a hell of a gamble – putting the lives of two people at risk over  _ this.”  _

“We have to try. Besides, we can always jump back again if we need to. In order to have time to pull this off, I’m going to need to jump us really far back, though – to the beginning of summer. Are you okay with that?” 

“I’m supposed to be at camp over the summer, genius.” 

“Oh, but  _ isn’t it a shame,  _ your new friend Alana, who has a great deal of influence within the community needs your help! And isn’t it awful, it’s a super reputable organization that looks kick ass on college apps. What a shame!” 

_ “Fine.”  _ Jared took a minute to fidget with the bottom of his shirt, as if thinking. It was the most nervous he’d ever looked. “Can we stop Evan from – y’know. The tree thing?” 

“Of course,” Alana smiled a little bit. The little bastard  _ does  _ care! 

“Pleasure doing business with you!” Jared smiled, shaking Alana’s hand. 

Alana once again was wading through the maple syrup of time. She reached the other side, dragging Jared along with her, before flopping into the dirt and just focusing on her breathing. Her lungs burned and her stomach ached and everything felt  _ super sore.  _

“Are you okay…?” 

“I need to sleep for the rest of forever,” Alana groaned into the dirt. “If I die, tell the next line’s Alana to  _ go home,  _ dumbass teenagers are definitely worth it but this  _ sucks  _ and  _ screw morality  _ because mine is gonna leave me traumatised.” 

“Alrighty, let’s get you home.” Jared helped pull Alana to her feet, supporting her shaky steps as he started the trek to his house. “I’m not leaving you to sleep – well, wherever it is you leave. You’re a mess, you need someone to keep an eye on you and you’d kill me if I took you to a hospital.” 

“Damn straight,” Alana tried to avoid coughing up a lung. It was a very near thing. “But I don’t need you babying me, this is what I’m  _ meant for.”  _

“I’m not babying you, dumbass. We’re friends. This is the shit that friends  _ do –  _ even if we weren’t friends, I wouldn’t leave you in the woods when you look like you’re about to start coughing up blood. Idiot.” 

Oh. That was...different. Kind of nice, actually? Nobody had cared when time travel did this shit to her in the past. Something warm welled up in her chest. 

Well maybe that wasn’t  _ love _ or  _ friendship _ or whatever. It was probably the next round of coughs making its way up her throat. 

“Alana Beck don’t you  _ dare _ start dying in the middle of the street –”

“– and what will you do if I will –”

“– I will find a way to jump lines until I find you again and kick your ass  _ over and over again  _ across  _ every timeline I can get to.”  _

“Way to threaten me without actually threatening me, genius.” 

“Shut up!” 


	4. Chapter 4

Alana was suspicious. 

Jared was being...nice. Well, not  _ nice- _ nice. But he made sure she was eating, had a place to sleep, even checked to make sure she was  _ feeling okay  _ the morning after she jumped them back to the beginning of the summer. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t  _ normal.  _ Nobody treated her like that. And nobody would willingly have let her crash on their couch for several days after contorting a complex web of lies to convince his parents to let her stay. It just wasn’t adding up. 

So she decided to rip off the bandaid. Three days after they jumped into the past – three days of mild monotony later – she confronted him while he was making breakfast. He was humming along to some song from a musical – she vaguely remembered it about being how someone measures a year,  _ how ironic –  _ when she slid onto a stool across from him at the island. 

“Why are you being so nice to me?” She didn’t even pretend with pleasantries. “You’re acting like you care or something. It’s weird. Why?” 

“It’s like I said the other night,” he scooped pancake batter onto the electric griddle he had gotten out for this precise purpose. “We’re friends. I care about you. I’m shit at showing it, but you just gotta deal with it now.” 

“But you also claim to be friends with Evan, and you didn’t treat  _ him _ this way –”

“– yeah, and look at how  _ that  _ turned out.” Jared scooped the next pancake with a sort of frustration. “He died. Over and over and  _ over.  _ And I couldn’t do  _ shit.  _ What if that was the last thing he ever heard me say to him? That I was his friend for  _ car insurance?  _ Some  _ friend. _ I’m not risking that again.” 

“Okay, but why? I don’t have anything else to offer, so I don’t really understand why you’d want to be my friend –”

_ “Christ,  _ ‘Lana, friendship isn’t a transaction! I’m your friend because we’ve bonded over being dragged head first into time travel bullshit. We’ve both watched the same two kids die again and again, we keep trying to stop it, and you thought we’d remain – business partners or some crap?” 

“That’s how it’s supposed to work.” Alana muttered bitterly. 

“I beg your pardon?” Jared’s head swiveled all the way around from where he was making Alana a cup of coffee at the old-fashioned (by her standards) machine she hadn’t quite figured out yet. 

“Time travelers are assigned to groups of two. The top and bottom of each class, second and second from the bottom, so on – they’re in constant competition with each other. It’s supposed to foster a sense of competition to instill in us the value of victory and the honor of independence –”

“That’s such  _ bullshit.” _

“It’s kinda fun,” Alana shrugged. “My partner and I – we were kind of friends. Before. She had the brains and I had the raw time-traveling muscle. She’d strategize, I’d do the grunt work, she’d take the win and split the spoils with me later on in secret.” 

“I’m sorry,  _ you had the raw-time-traveling muscle?”  _

“I’m unusually powerful,” Alana swiped her coffee from Jared. “Not, like, anime-protagonist powerful. But do you think it’s  _ normal  _ to be able to drag non-time travelers back with us? I perceive time in a different way than other people do, for whatever reason. It’s not a big deal, but it let me do things like trip and fall into time loops by accident as a five year old. I used to not experience time in a linear fashion, so, like – I’d be in three timelines holding three conversations and unable to focus on any of them because of the sheer brain-hurting juice that nonlinear time  _ is.  _ Once the government figured that out they helped me get control, worked for  _ years  _ so I can settle my head and focus on one scene at a time.” 

“So you mean that you have a presence that overlaps timelines? Like – like if I put a pancake here,” he gestured to the space between two of his pancakes, “and it touched both of them but was its own separate pancake, is that how you experience time?” 

“Sort of? It’s kind of a venn diagram. I’m not totally in one timeline, and I’m not totally in the other – I’m in both at the same time.” 

“My brain really fucking hurts,” Jared flipped a pancake. 

“Welcome to the club.” Alana sipped her coffee, unamused. “I spent the first seven years of my life trying to get my control of time travel to a point where I was only experiencing one timeline at a time. I’ve got a lot of issues wrapped up in that, and it’s not exactly the kind of thing you can go to  _ therapy  _ for.” 

“There’s not a time travel therapist?”

“Nobody’s ever needed one before!”

“Well  _ shit.”  _

***

Jared was acting weird. Evan was  _ sure  _ of it. There was something wrong. Or something off, at least. Because Jared had texted him  _ every day so far  _ of the summer. Which was only three days, true, but it was weird enough that there had been three days of text after a year of forced school interactions. 

**plyr2_electric_boogaloo:** daily reminder that you need to eat your fucking breakfast, nerd. 

And it was shit  _ like that!  _ Jared was reminding him to eat, to go to sleep at a normal time, to _ be careful climbing trees???  _ Which was the  _ weirdest thing  _ because Jared had known Evan for years and knew that it had been since fifth grade since Evan had fallen out of a tree. 

So there was something weird afoot. Something going on with Jared. And Evan was determined to figure it out. Y’know.  _ Covertly.  _ Because God forbid he actually ask. 

Yeah.  _ Perfect plan.  _ Way to go, Ev. 

***

Anala Kleinman was the top of her class. There was something wrong in the timeline a little to the left of her own – something relating to  _ Alana Beck,  _ the bizarre could-be-criminal and would-be best friend of hers – an Alana Beck who was currently from a timeline so far to her right that it felt like a rip had been –

– oh. Oh  _ no.  _ Holy hot fucking hands of time, there was a rip in the fucking timeline. A tangle. A  _ knot.  _

And Alana Beck, the one and the many of her, was likely unaware. Her need to fixate solely on the timeline she was experiencing at any given moment gave her a lot of power but forced her ignorance of the details. 

Anala was going to need to fix Alana’s mistakes. Whatever she was altering had to be undone. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be worth the consequences, wouldn’t be worth Alana getting into trouble and being wiped from history all together. 

For the one Alana that Anala had once loved, for the many Alanas, who Anala would never know, she had to fix this. 

Upon closer inspection, she came to a single goal –

– Connor Murphy and Evan Hansen would have to die. It was the only way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so we have an antagonist??? she's not super important. but. like. she's there now. and she has a /terrible name/. so. fun.


	5. Chapter 5

“I developed a plan so I can get out of your hair as quickly as possible, especially seeing as your parents won’t allow me to stay here indefinitely, so I should make plans to try to find my own place. I also really miss dance, so I’m going to try to find a local studio to take ballet and pointe, hopefully three times a week – that’s what I used to do, did you know that? Three days a week, two hours of ballet technique and an hour and a half of pointe. It’s a terribly old fashioned kind of dance, but there’s something beautiful and nearly nostalgic to doing the same choreo that was done hundreds of years ago, y’know? Anyway, once I figure out how to afford a place of my own – seeing as my motel room only lasts for the first month of school or so, and we’re a couple of months before then – I’m going to start taking dance and working with you on our new project. We should have that up and running in a week or so.” Alana tossed a stack of papers at Jared, who was reading on the couch. There were lots of handwritten notes scattered across the printed spreadsheets – plans, and flowcharts, and even a couple of fun doodles. 

Jared didn’t even give it the courtesy of a cursory glance. “Absolutely not. I mean the dance thing is cool, but you are  _ not _ moving out. Firstly the kind of paperwork you’d need to rent a place you don’t have because you technically  _ don’t exist,  _ and secondly you’d work yourself half to death trying to pay for anything. The best you could do was a minimum wage job, and that can’t support someone living on their own. So you’re staying here. If you want to dance and try to pay for that yourself, that’s your business, and I think it’s a good idea.” 

“But I can’t impose for too long –”

“– bullshit. You’re really saving me thousands of dollars in medical bills from the  _ heart attack  _ I’d have every time you barely make your rent, so this is for the best for everybody.” 

“And it’s not an imposition?” 

“I’ve been telling you for  _ almost a week now _ that you are  _ not  _ an imposition!” __

“Okay but I’m wasting your money and time –”

“Alana, my friend, my pal, my chum, my sib from another crib, my mime from another time –”

“– Jared what the –”

“You are not a problem, and I’d rather you be here, safe, where we can better get our work done. It is functional as well as just being the right thing.  _ Let me help you.”  _

“...fine. But I  _ am  _ getting a job, paying for dance myself, and paying your family back as much as possible.” 

“Deal!” 

***

“Stupid  _ Jared  _ and his stupid –  _ lack of apathy,”  _ Evan kicked a rock as he walked through the woods, his frustration leaking into his posture now that he wasn’t around people and wasn’t radiating anxiety instead. 

When he heard a faint  _ ‘ow’  _ where he kicked the rocks, all of that faded into pure, unadulterated  _ panic.  _

“Oh my – I’m  _ so sorry  _ I didn’t  _ see you there  _ are you  _ okay  _ I can’t believe I kicked a  _ rock at you  _ please don’t be mad I –”

“Please? Relax?” The voice spoke and – holy  _ fuck  _ okay that was Connor Murphy apparently the universe really  _ did  _ have it out for him! “I’m not mad – although you sure seem to be with the way you kicked that rock. At long last, who managed to piss off  _ Evan Hansen?”  _

“Jared,” Evan bit out. “He cares all of the sudden, but he never cared before. It’s bullshit.” 

“Amen to that,” Connor rolled his eyes. “I came out here for like, the same but worse. It’s my  _ parents.”  _

“Screw assholes that pretend to care when it benefits them,” Evan grumbled. 

“Screw assholes. Like. Full stop.” 

“But aren’t  _ you _ an asshole?” Evan lets the words slip out and promptly dies inside, physically feeling the need to double over and regret every choice he’s ever made. 

Connor let out a laugh. It was kind of the best thing Evan had heard all day. “I guess I am! Well screw me too, I guess.” 

Shit.  _ Shit,  _ Evan was bi. He hadn’t realized that until now. And over Connor  _ fucking  _ Murphy no less. 

_ Shit.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for how short this chapter is??? it's mostly setup but like........they get longer from here. because from here we get like. plot. well, plot and more terrible bullshit time travel. oh, and memes! plot, terrible bullshit time travel, and memes! yay!! if you're like. into that.


	6. Chapter 6

Alana and Jared’s new project was up and running within the week. At least, it was  _ supposed  _ to be. 

But, strangely enough, it was the middle of the day when Alana was forcefully  _ dragged  _ through time. It was a tugging that was so overwhelming that it shot stars across her vision, forcing her to stumble before she started falling back and back and –

– she was back. Back in Ellison State Park, with the chill in the air brisk enough that it  _ had  _ to be an autumn day. And  _ Jared wasn’t with her.  _

He would never know. That Jared would never know what happened to her, that she had been dragged through time. He would think – what, that she abandoned him? The very thought caused tears to burn at the corners of Alana’s vision. 

She would see him today. And he wouldn’t  _ remember.  _ She would know him, know all his weird habits, would’ve known what it was like to live with him and he  _ would never know.  _ Wouldn’t know what they did together. Wouldn’t know what they tried to stop. 

Okay. Okay,  _ cool,  _ she could do this. She just needed to analyze, adapt, figure out what to do next –

“Sorry about that,” a voice – an  _ apologetic _ voice – that Alana knew well cut through her rapid fire thoughts. “It’s always unpleasant to be dragged through time, but with that kind of knot there was  _ immediate action  _ necessary or whatever, so I had to. You’re okay, right? Oh, who am I kidding, of  _ course  _ you’re okay, you’re Alana Beck!” 

“What the  _ hell _ did you just do?” Alana snarled. 

“What needed to be done,” Anala shrugged as if blissfully unaware of her counterpart’s anger. “You were  _ really  _ screwing with a lot of lines, pulling that Jared along the way you did. That one in particular is my however many greats grandfather, you know? He never stops looking for you, never stops wondering what happened. It’s how lightspeed travel gets invented, a long time from now. He tries to find a way back to you, starts the project and passes it on to anyone who will listen, anyone who thinks he hasn’t gone nuts. You’re dabbling in things with massive ramifications, time is going  _ nuts,  _ knots are forming everywhere centralized by  _ your  _ location, maybe you should stop –”

“If this is how things are supposed to happen, like Jared being your grandfather, maybe you should just  _ let things go!  _ How could a knot possibly be forming when this has already happened in your timeline?” 

“Because it’s happening  _ wrong!  _ You’re supposed to mysteriously disappear and leave a note explaining things to Jared because you two form a QPR, not because he time traveled  _ with you  _ and he’s supposed to have doubt and inconsistencies and now he – doesn’t? Didn’t? I don’t  _ know  _ time travel is  _ weird  _ but my point is that this is a mess! The events are right but the sentiment is wrong and it’s looping together timelines that are supposed to stay separate.” Anala sighed and recollected herself. “Look, let’s just  _ let this happen,  _ let today pass and let one of them die and then you can go back to your own time and forget all of this.” 

“What’s your game, Anala? You’re not this nice. And even if you  _ were,  _ you’d never care about me or the timelines enough for this.” 

“Oh,  _ wow,  _ you really  _ must  _ be far from home,” Anala blinked. “You’re my best friend, Becky. Have been for  _ years.  _ Ever since our first year at Time’s Gate. And even if this isn’t  _ you,  _ you, it’s still a version of you, and I care about you no matter who you are, so I gotta keep an eye on you.” 

“You aren’t the Anala I grew up with  _ at all,”  _ Alana sighed. “And it’s pretty weird to find out my sworn enemy was named after me. But I can’t give up here. You understand, don’t you?” 

“I do,” Anala let her shoulders slump. “It’s why I’m sorry I have to do this.” Anala fell forward through time, and Alana slumped. 

_ Well. That’s  _ future  _ Alana’s problem. She’s probably gonna get more alternate versions of our classmates involved.  _

_ For now I need to find Jared and convince him I’m not crazy, then save Connor and Evan. Same plan as before. And if we fail today, we try the summer again.  _

_ And try not to let Anala separate us again. Cool. Cool beans. I can totally do this.  _

She set off walking to school, trying to figure out how to play the fact that she didn’t have a backpack or any books. 

***

Evan died when a tree branch nailed him in the head on the way home from school. Alana couldn’t look Jared in the eyes  _ during  _ school. So she picked someone different this time. Maybe this would take care of half the problem for her? 

“Look. I know we’re only acquaintances. But I’m a time traveler who is trying to prevent you and Evan Hansen from dying, and it’s a  _ mess  _ I’ve relived this day like  _ way too many times  _ also Jared’s however-many-greats granddaughter is probably going to try to kill you and me like, a million times. I need help. Wanna come relive the summer with me?” 

“What the fu –”

“Thanks!” 

She grabbed Connor’s hand.

And once again, Alana was wading through maple syrup. 

_ This couldn’t possibly go wrong.  _

***

“I’m high.” Connor slumped against a bench in Ellison. “I’m high or I’ve finally lost my last marble. This isn’t  _ possible.  _ You must be teaming up with Kleinman to fuck with me, that must be it –”

“Nope,” Alana was breathing heavily on the ground, her vision blurring as she struggled to make actual sounds with her mouth. Spitting out a mouthful of blood helped, even if it was absolutely  _ gross. _ “Not – not at all. Come – back tomorrow, can answer questions then.” 

“No way in hell, the fuck?” Connor blinked at Alana. “Like I’m going to leave you here while you’re looking like that? Where can I take you.” 

“Don’t have a place of residence yet –” Alana took a shaky breath, curling in on herself as much as possible. “Was gonna stay here for the night.” 

“Fuck  _ that,”  _ Connor pulled Alana to her feet and took most of her weight on one of his shoulders, hunching over so he could support her. “Come stay in my house. My parents are out of town this week because of some big important  _ whatever,  _ you can take the couch if you want or take my room, I don’t care –”

_ Why are all these dumbass mentally ill high school kids being so  _ nice _ to me? _

“Why do none of you have parents home this weekend?” Alana snickered as she and Connor began the journey to his house. 

“Because adults suck? Also – who the hell  _ else  _ have you stayed with this weekend?” 

“Mood. I stayed with Jared, the first time around. He...doesn’t remember.” 

“Oh. I’m sorry for your loss, if that’s – worth anything.” 

“He’s not  _ dead,”  _ Alana was quiet. “I can still see him. I can still be his friend.” 

“But it still hurts. You still lost something,” Connor was quiet. “And you can’t share it with anyone else, not really. So I’m – sorry.” 

“Oh. Well, thanks. I...I really appreciate it.” Alana was steadier on her feet. The walk got easier, especially with Connor’s help. 

Maybe there was something poetic to be found there. Alana was too tired – too sad – to care to find it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'know how in avatar everyone had a life changing zuko field trip?? well, except toph that is.   
> well this is this fic's version of that!! *everyone* is gonna get to have an alana-changing time travel trip! probably. we'll see.


End file.
